Self-Represented Borrowers - Private Student Loan Lawsuit Stories

New in Business Insider's "student debt spiral" series: Inside a mom's legal battle to turn her $55,000 student-loan balance to $0. https://lnkd.in/eV4bwxPX After Ashley Carlson puts her two kids to bed, she stays up until 2 a.m. most nights drafting court filings — work she never imagined doing before SoFi sued her to collect $55,000 indefaulted student debt. For the last two years, she's represented herself in a court battle with theprivate student-loan lender. Best-case scenario: Carlson gets her case dismissed, and her loans are discharged. In the worst case, she'll owe her defaulted balance plus hundreds of dollars in legal fees, with the riskof wage garnishmentand a hit to her credit score if she doesn't pay up. Carlson is pinning her legal hopes on an email she received in February 2024, congratulating herfor paying off her balance. She believed that SoFi was granting her the payment relief she'd been requesting, when in fact, her loan balance had been transferred elsewhere. That miscommunication changed the course of her next two years. "I'm exhausted. I'm drained. I'm burned out on so many levels," Carlson said. "But what else am I going to do?" Read more about Carlson's experience, and my other reporting for this series on the private student-loan industry, in the comments below. If you have a story to share about your student loans, I want to hear from you — message me here, email me at [email redacted], or find me on Signal at asheffey.97.